With so many consumers snatching up goods for their pandemic lifestyles, many people took advantage of the snarled supply chains by joining the truck driving industry. One such person, Arnesha Barron, “saw a moment to make her dream of starting her own trucking company come true.” But what was first an optimistic bet on the COVID trucking boom, the wager soon became a more troubling realization.  Read more…

In the most recent monthly Bureau Labor Statistics report, the number of truck transportation jobs vacillated in what could only be described as “an up-and-down affair.”  In June, total jobs in the truck transportation sector “declined by 200 jobs from May, according to the BLS, coming in at 1,609,700 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis.”  But this number was an adjusted figure for May, “which was an increase of 700 jobs from the initial May employment report.” The April jobs went on to be revised upward by 100 jobs as well.  Read more…

The Supreme Court ruled against unionized drivers “in a dispute about the pressure that organized labor can exert during a strike,” specifically “against unionized drivers who walked off the job with their trucks full of wet concrete.” Both liberal and conservative justices united in the decision, with lone dissenter, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, claiming “the ruling would hinder the development of labor law and ‘erode the right to strike.’”  Read more…

The Conversion Interactive Agency and People Data Analytics (PDA) conducted a new survey that has shed light on the current state of truck driving jobs and how today’s market conditions are affecting drivers.  Key takeaways include the fact that “truck driver job seekers have decreased since the Fall 2022 Driver Survey,” with this number being down 6% from the previous Fall survey, and a little over 3% from the Spring Survey. The survey goes on to add that “33.8% of drivers that stated they are currently looking for a truck driving job is the lowest since Conversion and PDA began asking this question in the Spring of 2021.”  Read more…

There is currently an ongoing demand for both truck drivers and back-office operations staff that supports them, despite the current freight recession. According to a recent article by Hilary Daninhirsch of Transport Topics, companies and brokerages are continuing to “require teams of dispatchers, load planners, logistics coordinators, and sales and administrative staff to manage their operations.” The article goes on to note how “trucking companies and brokerages are often behind the hiring curve for back-office and support staff, in part due to market variability.”  Read more…

The MTA will be given close to $400,000 in yearly funding from the Manitoba government over the next four years to help promote residents about jobs in the trucking industry, and support workforce training for those already in trucking. Aaron Dolyniuk, MTA executive director, said in a statement:  “Manitoba’s trucking industry needs to bring 4,300 drivers over the next four years into the industry to meet demand. That means we need to recruit, train, and retain a new driver in Manitoba every eight hours, every day, for the next four years,”   Read more…